3D ARTIST OF THE YEAR 2018

There is a winner amongst the winners!

Congratulations to our winner!

The decision wasn't easy at all but our jury faced this tough task and found the winner amongst the winners! Congratulations to Mikhail Buleyko, our 3D Artist of the Year 2018! He convinced our jury with his very detailed and astonishing 'Rusty Skies'.

A huge thank you goes out to all participants of our 3D Artist of the Month contest and an even bigger one to our twelve winners of 2018! It was a pleasure to do the interviews with you and to read all those unique stories about your ways of working in the cg industry and your passion behind it. Keep the good work up and we are looking forward to stunning entries for the upcoming year. New submissions will be published in our gallery on January 2nd, so stay tuned for that!

Artists

Alexandr MelentevJanuary 2018

"Subjectwise, I really enjoy drawing environments, cities and nature – the bigger the scale, the better. I’ve always been fond of fantasy literature and fairy tales, so the gradual shift towards that aesthetic came naturally."

Jin Hao VillaJune 2018

"I enjoy 3D sculpting, and shading/rendering the most for reasons I cannot fully explain. I just really like working on collectibles and statues. But as long as the base concept is cool and fun, the specifics of a job are secondary to me. Variety is the spice of life, after all!"

John Jak PaganSeptember 2018

Fabrizio MeliOctober 2018

"At the end of the day, you have to be passionate about 3D! Every time I see a spider now, I try to take a macro photo of it. After all this time closely studying the anatomy and physiology of spiders, I developed a strong sense of appreciation."

Mikhail BuleykoNovember 2018

“The scene takes place at the end of the 20th century in East Eurasia, somewhere along the Russian-Chinese border. The whole planet is filled with toxic waste and poisonous mist covers the land. What is left of humanity survives by climbing as high as possible, hastily building structures out of concrete and rusty metal atop the remnants of a now extinct civilization."

Stefan Kang Chun YihDecember 2018

“If you carefully focus on their eyes, you can clearly see the difference in their intentions. On the crocodile’s part, it’s an expression of failure that we all can relate to, but also embodies the spirit to never give up. With the little bird, in contrast, you can feel a humble and very safe position, even in light of the danger in front of it."

Jury

We're very happy to introduce to you our high-class RebusFarm 3D Artist of the Year 2018 jury! With their expertise in the 3D industry, they will take a close look at all our winners and elect the winner of the year, who will be announced at the end of December.

Manny FragelusCGSociety

Manny Fragelus is founder and program director of CGMA and CGWorkshops. Besides leading the academic direction for both schools Manny is also the host of the popular webinar series "Industry Sessions". This series gives participants the opportunity to interact directly with some of the best artists in the industry, ranging from the entire character art team from Naughty Dog to a panel with some of the best FX artists from Blizzard, MPC and ILM. Manny has over 17 years of experience working in the games, films and animation industry. His recent job was modeling lead at Dreamworks Feature Animation for the last 11 years.

Jeff MottleCGarchitect

Jeff Mottle is the founder of CGarchitect Digital Media Corporation, the leading online magazine and user community for architectural visualization professionals. He also co-founded the CGschool, that caters exclusively to architectural visualization professionals. Having worked in the industry since 1996, Jeff has been involved in developing and speaking at conferences around the world. He is immersed in many areas of the industry and actively pursues initiatives that help promote the growth of the field, including CGarchitect's yearly Architectural Visualization competition and 3D Awards.

Rob RedmanPariah Studios & 3D World

Rob Redman is editor at 3D World magazine and he is creative director at a boutique animation and VFX studio in the UK called Pariah Studios, working across TV, print and film. The studio has worked on projects for the music industry, international technology brands and governments. While not in the studio Rob can be found presenting at events from Siggraph and FMX to THU TV, or running training courses. His background in photography lends itself to his love for realistic rendering and building physically based material.

Ralph HuchtemannRebusFarm

Ralph, who originally completed a degree in mechanical engineering at RWTH Aachen, started in the 3D business in 1995 by founding the 3D animation company RebusMedia and working as a successful 3D artist. During that time he produced hundreds of animations and visualizations for B2B communication and commercials. About ten years later Ralph founded RebusFarm to solve the problem of lacking computer power that 3D artists are experiencing in general. He started with a clear vision of how to approach the issue.

Carrie Mok3D Artist

Carrie is editor of 3D Artist magazine, one of the top publications in the world for CG tutorials, behind-the-scenes access on the tools and technology behind the biggest movies and games, and industry insight. She has been working on the magazine since 2015, interviewing key industry figures in VFX, animation and games from ILM, MPC, Double Negative, Epic Games and more, and bringing the spotlight to the inspiring art and techniques of professional artists.

Vasilis KoutlisDesigner & 3D Photographer

The instigator of both xDream3D and VWArtclub was born in Athens, in 1979. He studied furniture design and decoration. He began his occupation with 3D art in 2002 and in 2007 the idea of xDream3D was born. He managed to acquire partners from all over the world and various collaborators trust him with their ideas as he rewards them with his detailed designs. Not a moment goes by without him thinking of a beautiful image, thus he is never concerned with time but only with the design’s quality.

Rusko RuskovVP Production and Delivery, Chaos Group

Rusko Ruskov is an industry renowned expert on 3D visualization with over 10 years of professional experience in rendering, movie and broadcast media VFX, automotive, product and character design. He leads Chaos Group’s 3D visualization team and is responsible for the product’s performance excellence of V-Ray since its early days. 3D artist with great passion for innovative technologies that blur the line between reality and art, Rusko has been a guest speaker at industry conferences such as Siggraph, Siggraph Asia, FMX, Animago, CG Event, and has juried at many rigorous and renowned CG competitions.

Lyudmil VanevSales Engineer Team Lead, Chaos Group

Lyudmil Vanev is a CG professional with more than 10 years’ experience in everything CG, working on projects in architectural visualization, animation and visual effects. Lyudmil joined the Chaos Group CG team in 2014, after working as a CG specialist and compositor at some of the biggest VFX studios in Bulgaria. Several years and tens of thousands of air miles later, he's established and leading the Sales Engineer Team - a specialist outfit where he’s focused on helping companies and professionals get the best out of V-Ray rendering engine.